Eat my lab coat

When my youngest daughter became addicted to the Simpsons, I found myself slowly drawn in. For her, the initial attraction was in the yellowness of the characters - yellow being her favourite colour. For me it was the humorous yet highly sophisticated angle the series offers on science.

As far as I am concerned, it is abundantly clear that the people behind the Simpsons are proceeding with a scientific rationale. The core object of their investigation, the Simpson family, is a system trapped in a dynamic yet extremely stable equilibrium. In 14 years, and more than 300 episodes, virtually nothing has changed irreversibly.

In every episode, the writers change just one parameter in order to probe the response of the equilibrium system. The change may temporarily affect many people in the Simpsons' home town of Springfield and turn their small world upside down, but by the end of the episode, the system will have returned to its initial state.

The meandering path on which it returns allows us to observe the mechanisms of reactions between the system's components. For example: Homer breaks his jaw and has to wear a brace that doesn't allow him to speak. To break out of the isolation, he encourages others to speak to him about their problems and he learns to listen. Thus he is suddenly seen as a thoughtful and understanding person by all around him. Other initial disturbances include Bart and Lisa being transferred to different schools, Marge rediscovering high school admirers, and Grandpa Simpson falling in love. Each of these experiments triggers major reactions, but by the end of the episode, everything is back to normal.

Notable exceptions to this rule are the Halloween episodes, forming a mini-series under the title Treehouse of Horror. In total reversal of the general policy, these episodes feature "magical" and unrealistic events that snowball into ever bigger catastrophes, leading ever farther from the normal state. While the normal episodes illustrate the "negative feedback" situation, where changes result in forces that lead back to the initial state, the Halloween episodes show positive feedback, where a small change can trigger a major catastrophe, and the planet is eventually taken over by dolphins, zombies, aliens or some such.

Circumstantial evidence for the scientific thinking behind the series is found in many science-based jokes featuring the laws of thermodynamics, nuclear power and evolution (often greatly egged on by radiation leaks from the nuclear power station where Homer works). Modern technology is represented not only by the power station, but also in advances such as the town's notoriously flawed and pointless monorail. While there is no criticism of the technology as such, its failure is shown to result from the involvement of stupid operators (Homer responding to imminent meltdown at the power station by playing "eenie-meenie-minie-mo" with the control buttons, for example), greedy proprietors, and gullible customers.

Lack of scientific knowledge in the general public is a recurring theme. Homer, of course, represents the absolute zero level of scientific literacy. When the family is playing scrabble and he moans, "Nobody can make a word with these letters," we are then given a glimpse of the letters aligned in front of him: "O X I D I Z E." Even though his job at the power plant would in theory require some knowledge of physics, glimpses of understanding are extremely rare. (Although they are worth waiting for. When Bart is busy building a perpetuum mobile for a school project, for example, Homer storms around shouting: "In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!")

Homer's daughter Lisa is the person to turn to for competent scientific answers on everything from astronomy to zoology. On some occasions, she even gets to practise real scientific research, for example when she isolates the pheromone that makes bullies attack nerds, and when she compares Bart's intelligence with that of a hamster. Her scientific prowess does her little good, however, as most of the other characters are too dumb to appreciate herknowledge. She also lacks role models, as the only scientist to appear regularly is a "mad inventor" style nerd. Thus, while extending the scientific method of experimental analysis to the field of cartoon series, the Simpsons presents some sobering lessons to real-life scientists.

I love the fact that we have a TV format where you can mention thermodynamics without scaring people away. But as my kids and I are getting close to having seen all the episodes, and there is the danger that the Simpsons may come to an end at some point, we desperately need more TV made by people who care about scientific understanding, not about blinding their viewers with techno-babble. In other words, please give us less kryptonite and warp drive, and more power stations and three-eyed fish.

Michael Gross is a science writer in residence at the school of crystallo-graphy, Birkbeck College, University of London. His latest book, Light and Life, is available from Oxford University Press.

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